


Deepest and Most Desperate

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate POV, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Family, Friendship, Gen, Harry and Ron Brotp, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: Harry has told Ron about an extraordinary mirror; one which shows his family.
Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1407286
Comments: 18
Kudos: 120





	Deepest and Most Desperate

On Boxing Day, Ron had barely begun to enquire about what Harry had got up to with his new invisibility cloak overnight before his friend was eagerly and rapidly telling him anyway, his eyes bright with excitement despite the dark circles beneath them. 

‘-They were inside the mirror, loads of them, all crowded in, and they could see me too, they were waving at me-’

‘Did they speak to you?’ asked Ron, completely agog, his eyes wide. 

‘No, I couldn’t hear anything so I think even if they’d tried - but anyway they were there, and they could definitely see me - it was my whole family, Ron!’ 

‘Wow…’ he said, utterly awe-struck. ‘And it was just… in a classroom?’ 

‘Yeah! It was amazing - my mum had eyes just like mine, except she didn’t wear glasses, and she had red hair - much darker than yours though - and my dad looked a lot like me, same hair and everything, I recognised them straight away-’

‘Didn’t you know what they looked like before?’ asked Ron, surprised. 

‘Well, no,’ said Harry awkwardly. ‘I don’t remember them, do I? This was the first time I’ve ever looked at them, really.’ 

‘But what about photographs?’ 

‘Oh,’ said Harry, laughing slightly, his cheeks turning a slight pink. ‘Nah, I s’pose my aunt doesn’t have any… she wouldn’t put any up even if she did, I don’t think her and my mum got on. But anyway - it was my family, Ron, my actual family, I never realised magic could do that kind of thing, perhaps-’

‘You could have woken me up!’ said Ron crossly, who now felt he had missed out on something quite extraordinary, for he, too, had never realised that magic was capable of such things. 

‘You can come tonight, I’m going back,’ said Harry firmly. ‘I want to show you the mirror.’ 

‘I’d like to see your mum and dad,’ said Ron eagerly, still utterly fascinated, both by the strange mirror Harry described and a kind of morbid curiosity to see the famous Lily and James Potter. 

‘And I want to see all your family, all the Weasleys, you’ll be able to show me your other brothers and everyone,’ said Harry, equally eager. There was a hungry sort of look on his face, though he had not touched the breakfast laid out before them. 

‘You can see them any old time,’ Ron shrugged, who thought that his family was perhaps the most boring thing one could see in an enchanted mirror. ‘Just come round my house this summer. Anyway, maybe it only shows dead people. Shame about not finding Flamel, though.’ He looked at Harry, who still looked rather hungry, and there was something more in his expression too, something wide-eyed and distracted. ‘Have some bacon or something,’ he told him, ‘why aren’t you eating anything?’ 

Harry didn’t answer; he didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes were flicking around slightly, as though thinking about something. 

‘You all right?’ Ron prompted him, after several moments of silence. ‘You look odd.’ 

Harry gave a little start. ‘Yeah, course. I’m fine. More than fine. You’ll come with me, won’t you? Tonight?’ 

‘Yeah, course,’ said Ron. ‘I told you, I want to - I want to see them too.’ 

‘Good,’ said Harry, nodding fervently. ‘Good, ‘cos I told them I’d come back.’ 

‘D’you reckon they could hear you?’ asked Ron, who now felt a little alarmed. 

‘I told them I would,’ Harry repeated, apparently not listening again. 

It was very odd. For all that Harry seemed very excited, and thrilled with what he had seen, Ron rather thought he was acting like someone who was very sad. They agreed that they couldn’t go back during the day - there was too much activity in the castle and teachers and ghosts and Filch running around, and it felt like something they should probably keep quiet. 

‘Something like that’s going to be really powerful,’ Ron advised him. ‘Not something they’d usually let first years be around.’ 

But Harry seemed impatient and distracted and barely able to focus on anything. He didn’t eat at all over lunch either, which Ron found utterly bizarre, and when they tried to play a game of chess int he afternoon, Harry seemed more intent on staring into the flames of the fire than paying attention to his chess pieces, which shouted irritably up at him to do something about Ron’s rook.

Ron put it down to tiredness, but part of him wondered if this was something he simply couldn’t understand. If Harry couldn’t remember his parents anyway, Ron didn’t really get what the big deal was, in the same way that he didn’t ever really think about or miss the uncles he had that had died before he was born. But it was all Harry seemed to be able to talk about, how his father had put his arm around his mother, how she was crying and smiling at the same time (which Ron couldn’t imagine), how when Harry had sat in front of the mirror, his father had crouched down too, how the older people, the other relatives, had seemed to come and go but his parents stayed there all night-

‘How long were you there?’ asked Ron, frowning. 

‘Dunno,’ said Harry. ‘It was getting light when I got back to bed.’

‘You must be knackered - are you sure you want to go back tonight? What about tomo-’

‘I said I’d be back,’ said Harry fiercely. 

That evening, Ron started to wonder if Harry had dreamt the whole thing. They trudged up and down the dark, cold corridors of the castle, ducking their heads into empty classrooms. ‘Nope, not this one,’ was Harry’s constant refrain. ‘I think it was round this next corner.’ 

What had felt like a jolly, exciting adventure at first, when Harry had swept the incredible cloak over them, quickly started to feel like something stupid and pointless. Ron had not thought to put slippers on, and his feet were going numb with cold on the rough stone floors. 

‘I’m freezing,’ he said, after nearly an hour. ‘Let’s forget it and go back.’ 

‘No!’ Harry hissed, and even in the dim light, Ron could see a wild sort of desperation in eyes. ‘I know it’s here somewhere.’ 

So they went on, Ron’s thin paisley pyjamas doing little to keep out the stale chill of the castle, the eerieness of the unusually empty and still corridors starting to give Ron the creeps. But Harry was practically dragging him along, huffing with increasing impatience as they peered into empty room after empty room. 

The Grey Lady was up ahead of them, gliding in the opposite direction, so they ducked into an alcove as she passed. ‘All right,’ Harry muttered, tugging on Ron’s elbow once she was well gone, ‘let’s go.’ 

‘Come on, Harry,’ moaned Ron, dragging his feet. ‘My feet are dead with cold, and it’s really late - maybe we can try again-’

‘It’s here!’ Harry blurted out, ‘just here - yes!’

He pulled Ron to a door by a suit of armour, and pushed on the door. There, in the middle of the room, was the large mirror Harry had described, nearly touching the ceiling, with a fancy frame gilded gold, and latin inscription at the top. The surface glimmered in the low light, but Ron barely had time to take it in before Harry was throwing off the cloak and running towards it, pressing his hands against the glass. Ron saw his head tilt as he looked up, and int he reflection, his eyes as wide and hungry as they had been before. 

‘See?’ he whispered, his voice awed and reverent. 

Ron squinted. Harry was pressed so close to the glass that he could barely see his reflection, let alone anyone else. ‘I can’t see anything.’ 

‘Look!’ exclaimed Harry impatiently. ‘Look at them all… there are loads of them…’ 

His voice had slipped back into that reverent tone, his eyes were wide again. Ron wondered if he had gone mad, or maybe he had always been mad. Ron had only known him a few months after all, but he had really felt he’d got to know Harry, better than anyone else, and Harry had never acted like this before. 

‘I can only see you,’ Ron told him gently. 

‘Look in it properly,’ said Harry eagerly, tearing his eyes away, ‘go on, stand where I am.’ 

He stepped aside, and Ron took his place. A glorious image hit him - there he was, but older, taller, broader chested, with a certain handsomeness in his face that was closer to Bill than himself. He looked happy, and sure of himself; a Head Boy badge glinted on his chest above a Quidditch Captain badge, and in his hands he held ornate cups that he knew, instinctively, were the House and Quidditch cups. 

He gaped. ‘Look at me!’ he exclaimed, as awed as Harry had been. 

‘Can you see all your family standing around you?’ asked Harry enthusiastically. 

‘No - I’m alone - but I’m different-’ He described to Harry what he saw, grinning gleefully, but Harry looked bewildered, even slightly hurt, especially when Ron said, ‘do you think this mirror shows the future?’ 

‘How can it?’ asked Harry resentfully, ‘all my family are dead - let me have another look-’

But Ron wanted a closer look at himself, wanted to look for more clues as to what lay ahead for him, this glittering future he wanted so desperately… 

‘You had it to yourself all last night,’ he said, for he had only been looking at it a few seconds while Harry, he knew, had had hours, ‘give me a bit more time.’ 

‘You’re only holding the Quidditch Cup, what’s interesting about that?’ said Harry harshly, and to Ron’s shock he tried to barge his way back into place. ‘I want to see my parents.’ 

‘Don’t push me-’ began Ron, completely bewildered at this sudden, aggressive change. 

There was a sudden, echoing clunk from outside, and they both froze, staring at the door, still gripping each other. They had, Ron realised at once, forgotten that they should be whispering. 

‘Quick!’ he hissed, and he seized Harry’s cloak from the floor and threw it back over them. It was just in time; Mrs Norris came skulking around the door, turning her yellow, lamp-like eyes towards them. She stared for what felt like several minutes, then turned and vanished with a flick of her tail. 

‘This isn’t safe,’ said Ron, who felt far more disturbed than he ought to at the prospect of being caught here, ‘she might have gone for Filch, I bet she heard us. Come on.’ 

And he grabbed Harry by the arm and pulled him out of the room, ignoring how he looked over his shoulder and pulled back as they left.


End file.
